Somerville High School - Radiator Yearbook (Somerville, MA)

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the creditor nation. Great wealth had to be developed and this immense wealth pro- vided the impetus for an industrial expan- sion that is as extraordinary as our terri- torial expansion. The obtaining of a part of it occupied all minds. Like a consuming fever this urge for money raged through- out the land. Everyone’s mind was turned towards accumulating wealth. Never be- fore did money mean so much, never be- fore did so many opportunities present themselves for its accumulation. The rich man, the unscrupulous banker saw also the great industrial wealth and set about in his greedy way to control it. Great corporations were established, mergers and bargains were made, and wrongful methods employed to monopolize the wealth and divest the honest individual of his opportunity. The average man was made a slave to industry, and the age of big business was begun. The captains of industry and the princes of finance became predominantly influential in determining the course of our national life, while the great masses of people either through in- difference or ignorance paid little attention to their government. This same situation is prevailing today. Citizens consider their government as a mere abstraction, as a mere mechanical device; automatically operated; following a higher law, of course, needing little or no attention at all. Men sit at home little knowing or caring less about what is going on in national, state or municipal affairs, content to say that the interest of one man will make no difference or that politics are too corrupt. Yet while the good, honest men remain political infidels or cowards, the unscrupulous politician, the dema- gogue, the great financiers and the in- dustrialists are dictating our laws, hold- ing office, breeding corruption and deceit. Party machines have risen which control the vote of a populace, the individual is subjugated to the will of the party, politi- cal bosses rule cities and towns, while the Bourbons of industry and the Hohenzol- lerns of high finance go further, they dic- tate to presidents. Money is the predomi- nating influence in determining elections. Wall Street can make or break a presi- dent. Our duly elected representatives evade legislation fearful of the conse- quences of opposing the avaricious desires of the money-mad. They have allowed these privileged few to secure an almost tyrannical economic dictatorship. The great masses of people are ruled by a wealthy upper class, an upper class whose only God is the God of gold, whose only desire is to get more, never thinking of the sufferings and hardships endured by the masses of the people, the true Ameri- cans, who year in and year out are the unfortunate victims to the insincere ap- peals of the demagogues. Political bosses must be vanquished and the individual must be freed from the slavery of the party or combine. Men must rise from the party and vote for the man. They must not allow themselves to be bulldozed by gaudy showings and grandiloquent appeals of the insincere. Our attitude toward all public questions should be characterized by an ardent dem- ocratic sympathy and earnest enthusiasm for the common wealth. Fellow Classmates—The age of terri- torial expansions for this great and abun- dantly blessed country of ours has passed. The outposts of civilization extend from sea to sea. We have no savage Indians or wild beasts of the wilderness to subdue. We cannot be partakers of the conquest of the wilderness in any material sense. Yet duty devolves upon us. There are new' frontiers for occupation; a new wil- derness to be conquered: a task perhaps more momentous in its endeavor, a task which may at times try our souls to the utmost. In the colonial days before the adop- tion of the Constitution, the right to vote or hold office was determined by the wrealth or property a man owned. Then there w’as an excuse for the government being controlled by the plutocrats. Today there is no excuse. Under the Constitution, the right to vote or hold office is an expressed privilege of all the people. The great 18

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Class Oration “THE NEW FRONTIER” At a time when our democracy is being attacked on all sides, the attention of every citizen should be directed toward his gov- ernment. When men speak of this gov- ernment, they say that it is inefficient; that it is corrupt. But since there is so much criticism, it would be well for us to examine the successive stages of the development of our government in this country. Starting as thirteen geographically dis- united colonies on the Atlantic seaboard, the United States declared their independ- ence of a tyrannical England and set about to establish themselves into a separate and independent state, severing all allegi- ance from the mother country and draw- ing up a constitution in which was em- bedded the principles of a democratic form of government whereby it is acknowl- edged, that all men are created equal, that all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that the greatest happiness of the individual is the true end of all government. It was indeed appropriate that the United States be chosen to be the prin- cipal exponent of democracy. Inhabited by a people who migrated to this country in order to escape religious, political or economic persecution, they left behind their European jealousies and animosities and co-operated in cultivating and civiliz- ing this new country and in permanently establishing their inalienable rights; the rights to which God entitles them, the per- sonal liberties of life, liberty and the pur- suit of happiness. Such a government and such theories of government, when presented to the world at that time, were considered im- practical. The rule of the people in the thirteen small, trifling, English colonies seemed far-fetched to the bigoted and haughty nations of Europe whose only avenue of political liberty was fast becom- ing a domicile of despotism. Thus, the small nation across the great expanse of the Atlantic was not recognized by Eng- land, but looked at with scorn and con- tempt. Ridiculed as it was, this seemingly in- significant country, whose principles of government were and ever will be secure, contained within itself the germs of such an industrial and territorial expansion as the world never before saw. No migra- tion of people has equaled the march of that great mass of humanity westward. Spurred on by a desire for adventure or for a place for a new home, the pioneers came upon sources of untold natural wealth: fields, forests, mines, rivers, and prairies; all ready for cultivation and de- velopment. By forest trail and horseback, by wagons and primitive railroads, hordes of men, women, and children passed from the eastern shores over the Appalachian barrier. Once over the barrier they spread in every direction, some going north, others south, and many straight west, but the outpost of civilization, the frontier, kept surging providentially west- ward. Crossing the Mississippi, they passed slowly and resolutely on to the great mid- west, filling the plains and valleys, stud- ding the prairies with farmhouses, peop- ling the vast expanse with a new civiliza- tion. Ascending the steep slopes of the Rockies and then down to the shores of the Pacific, the conquest of the wilderness was completed and civilization was substi- tuted for savagery at the cost of the extinction of the original occupiers of the land. Thus the immense wealth of this country was revealed. A wealth so great that in time it transformed the United States from the poorest to the wealthiest nation in the world. From the debtor to 17

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masses of people must take advantage of this privilege. They must manifest an interest in their government; must edu- cate themselves in the affairs of govern- ment and vote intelligently. In a true democracy, the government can rise no higher than its source, and as the source of the government in this country is the people, then it is the duty of the people to take part, a sincere and active part, in their government. They must appoint to office not insincere demagogues but good, honest men, men who seek not to despoil the escutcheon of public service by the at- tainment of selfish ends but rather those who eagerly respond to an imperative need and further elevate their position by the faithful consummation of all duties. We must restore our government to the same state that it enjoyed at the rati- fication of the Constitution. Although the intricacies of economic laws have be- come perplexing, we must never suffer the meaning of the Constitution to be misapplied. We must rescue the sacred trusts, the public offices, from unfaithful servants. It is our duty to right the eco- nomic wrongs that tend to enslave our people, our duty to rescue the government from being ruled by one class; your duty to restore to the whole of the people the right to govern themselves as they wish without the least apprehension or fear of the dire consequences which may befall them for obstructing the wishes of any predominant figure in political affairs. By manifesting our sincere interest in government, by using our utmost en- deavors to see straight, to think clearly on all public questions, and to educate our- selves on the intricacies of government, we will be able to accomplish these ends. Let us here firmly resolve, “that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom,” that the government will be restored to the people, that the govern- ment will be administered by good, honest, and upright men, so that we may in out- turn transcend to future generations a democracy as glorious as the heritage which is ours. William B. Joy.